An April eSchool News report, “Podcast trumps lecture in one college study,” reveals what many of us could have guessed: “The ability to pause and rewind podcast lectures gave the upper hand to college students in a recent study that compared the performance of students who attended a lecture in person and those who viewed it from iTunes University.”

But is it just the pause button that makes the difference? No, it’s the writing that accompanied it. The article explains that “test scores were most dramatically affected by note taking. Students who watched the video lecture and took notes . . . scored an average of 15 points higher than their peers in the lecture hall.”

Note taking, writing, made a difference for these students. Just listening didn’t do it, whether students listened just once or many times, whether they paused the video or let it play through. Dani McKinney, the lead researcher, states, “It’s not enough to just do rote memory and repetition.”

Get that? It’s not hearing the teacher say something that leads to learning. It’s not even hearing her repeat it several times. It’s stopping, processing the information, and then writing it out in your own words. It’s taking time to “re-read” the text, to think critically about the concepts and main ideas, and to write down the information for future reference.

Okay, then, what does this mean for the writing classroom? Ideally, writing classes aren’t using lecture methods at all. Instead we favor classroom discussion, small-group work, and other writing activities. In truth, these practices in the writing classroom are successful for the same reasons that the pause button and note taking work well together—students are participating in the activities, rather than listening passively.

Still there are times when we do rely on mini-lectures and demonstrations. Based on this study, I want to try the following practices as I teach:

• Take more pauses. The study pointed out that when teachers lecture they tend to move through information quickly, stopping only if they are asked a question. I’m going to try to stop myself more often, both to give students time to catch up as they take notes and to allow more time for them to process the information that I am sharing.
• Make more requests to rethink. Pausing the podcasts gave students the chance to stop and think about the information, backing the recording up if necessary. At key moments, then, I hope to ask students to think back in the conversation, to synthesize ideas, and to draw conclusions about what they are hearing.
• Model note taking and critical thinking. Too often, I think I have made the mistake of assuming that students have all the basic study skills they need. I’ll spend more time with think-alouds that show my thinking and rethinking during those pauses. Making connections is great, but it’s even better if I can help students understand how those connections are made.
• Ask students to write more in response. I always ask students to write, but this study reminds me that it’s valuable to ask students to write specifically in response to what we discuss and explore. I need to ask students to summarize, analyze, predict, and synthesize (not all at once, of course). The more they can respond in writing, the more likely they are to make the knowledge their own.

Tags: lecture, podcast, writing

Categories: Podcast, Study Skills, Teaching Advice
You might also like: 4.5 Minute Lesson on Audience, Purpose, and Voice
Read All Traci Gardner